(Host)
The spring floods that have torn up roadways and damaged lakefront property are
having an environmental impact as well.

The
high water has washed phosphorus and other pollutants downstream into Lake Champlain.

As
VPR's John Dillon reports, climate change could make the problem worse.

(Dillon)
The Brown's River in Essex Center is normally a placid stream that meanders into the Winooski River. This week the Brown's River and another nearby
stream jumped their banks - and inundated a field near David Cota's house.

(Cota) "Yeah, they've been out here
spreading liquid manure now for a week."

(Dillon)
Cota was looking at a manure spreader whose work was halted by the rising brown
water.

(Cota) "Whether or not any of it's still
here or not, I don't know. It's probably all headed to Lake
Champlain by now this whole valley here being flooded now."

(Dillon)
This time of year is hard on the lake, as raging rivers wash animal waste,
sewage and soil sediment downstream. The main problem is phosphorus, a nutrient
that feeds the algae blooms that plague the lake.

(Smeltzer) "I expect in terms of the
amount of phosphorus that comes to Lake Champlain in 2011
we're going to see a really big chunk of it having come down just in this past
week."

(Dillon)
Eric Smeltzer is acting manager of the state's ecosystem restoration program.
He says high water can scour out stream banks and that the erosion also
contributes to the phosphorus load.

(Smeltzer) "When you get flows this high
not only do you have more water carrying phosphorus, you actually have higher
phosphorus concentrations in the water because of these processes, the added
erosion that's caused. So it's almost a double whammy when you look at it that
way."

(Dillon)
Vermont based its Lake Champlain phosphorus
clean up plan on a relatively dry year - 1991. That plan is now being
re-written by the Environmental Protection Agency, and it will likely be
re-adjusted to reflect the wetter weather of the past decade.

And
it may get even wetter. A research study done last year for The Nature
Conservancy predicted that climate change will bring more precipitation to the Lake Champlain basin.

Louis
Porter of the Conservation Law Foundation says if more rainfall is the new
normal, then society will have to adjust the ways it handles water pollution.

(Porter) "And what that means is that we
have to have more capacity in all of the prevention system we have to take up
water and to deal with large precipitation events. So we need more capacity on
farm fields not to have run-off. We need more capacity in our stormwater system
to prevent run off there. And we need more waste water plant capacity to handle
loads there."

(Dillon)
But floods like we're seeing this spring are natural events, a fact that Mike
Kline is quick to point out. Kline is head of the rivers program at the state
Agency of Natural resources. He says when a river goes over its banks, the
floodplain helps slow the stream's flow and absorb sediment.

(Kline) "Because they're the pressure
relief valve of the river. If the river can get out on its floodplain, it's
going to be less erosive of those stream banks, which means less pollution into
the lake."

(Dillon)
Kline says the conflict - and property damage - occurs because people historically
have put highways and buildings in places where rivers flood. He says the
challenge is to work with communities to protect those floodplain areas.